Uma Thurman has opened up about her teenage pregnancy by an older man, which she had aborted, as she called for the Texas abortion ban law to be lifted. Uma Thurman has revealed she had an abortion in her late teens as she spoke out against the ‘horror’ of Texas’ new ban.
The actress put her own personal story out there in a bid to see the law lifted, as she revealed how she was “accidentally impregnated by a much older man” in her teens and decided to have an abortion.
Uma, now 51 years old, explains how she began her acting career young and was living alone in Europe when she discovered she was pregnant by a man. Although she wanted to keep the baby, her family decided that it was better to terminate the pregnancy.
In a law that came into force this month, abortions carried out after medical professionals can detect cardiac activity, which is typically around the six-week mark, have been banned in the state.
Writing an impassioned op-ed for The Washington Post against the ruling, Uma shared: “I started my acting career at 15, working in an environment where I was often the only kid in the room.”
“In my late teens, I was accidentally impregnated by a much older man. I was about to start a job and lived out of a suitcase in Europe. I was unable to decide what to do. I wanted to keep my baby, but how?”
“We decided as a family that I couldn’t go through with the pregnancy and agreed that termination was the right choice. My heart was broken.”
She says the abortion was the “hardest decision of her life”, as she admits she was left feeling “anguish” and “sadness”, but she knows that it was the right decision for her and allowed her to “grow up and become the mother she wanted and needed to be”.
In her op-ed, Uma said the abortion law “pits citizen against citizen”, as she admitted she is “grief-stricken” by what was happening in Texas currently. Uma is the mother of three children, Maya, 23, and Levon, 19, along with her ex-husband Ethan Hawke, and Luna, 9, with her former partner Arpad Busson.
She described motherhood as the “greatest love she has ever felt”. Speaking in 2010, she said: “What does being a mother mean to me? That’s simple … every day, I experience the greatest love I have ever felt. I don’t want to miss a second of it.
“I don’t want them to notice when I’m exhausted or depressed. They need a mom who can give them security. If they don’t, they could become more vulnerable than their children.”
Uma works hard to be a role model to her kids but she always tries to explain to them that she is “They are only “human” like them.